


On the things you love

by pearwaldorf



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Dot Day, Gen, M/M, personalization of ritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 13:53:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearwaldorf/pseuds/pearwaldorf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How six households in Night Vale deal with a weekly ritual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the things you love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theherocomplex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theherocomplex/gifts).



The packages are delivered like clockwork, or at least they would be in a town where clocks are real. They arrive on porches and inside mailboxes Saturday evening, courtesy of the Sheriff’s Secret Police. There are stern instructions to not open them before midnight on Sunday. (The town does not talk about what happens to residents who jump the gun before Dot Day. Sometimes it involves screaming. Other times quiet implosion, with no sound but your own breath before the cessation of all feeling and existence.) 

Each household deals with Dot Day differently, of course. Some don’t wait, and open them as soon as they’re able. Others see it as another chore, and wait until the last minute possible. Everybody tries to avoid the blue dots, except when there are heavy objects that are a pain to haul to the dump or under the haze of despair that comes only with the realization of how many possessions you have that won’t fit into the number of moving boxes you have on hand. (After all, you only make the mistake of putting one on your annoying little sibling or hated classmate once.)

//

There was question among the angels about whether it would be proper for them to put dots on things, but since they technically don’t exist, it is impossible to send a request to the city council for clarification. After much discussion and consensus-building, they decided as representations of and spirits of love, it is within their purview to physically express this aspect of their being. 

They like to gather around Josie in the evenings after dinner and do it together. One by one, they kiss her on the cheek and put dots on her fingernails. It is their way of showing their gratitude to her for sheltering and caring for them. She can’t put any on them, but they know she would if she could.

//

Intern Steven puts dots on Khoshekh and the kittens, now more like cats. They don’t seem to like the stickiness but will put up with it for the attention, butting their heads into his hand as he applies them between their shoulder blades (so they can’t lick them off). He’ll never get over how ridiculously adorable they are when they flip over on their backs as he rubs their bellies, kneading their paws into empty air. Unearthly rumblings he presumes are purrs echo over the tile walls and he feels peaceful, grateful for the experience. 

He puts them on the chipped coffee mugs and battered furniture in the intern office, as well as his reporter’s notebook and pens. When he feels brave he goes into the broadcast booth and dots the equipment. On Monday mornings he watches Cecil scrape the red off the mic, a melancholy smile on his face. The Sunday after Steven is abducted by the wandering void screeches Cecil puts a dot next to his name on the intern memorial wall. It is the first of many layers his name will accumulate.

//

Tamika Flynn puts dots on her parents and her little brother and sister, because it’s what she’s supposed to do and what she’s always done every Sunday. She loves them, of course, but it doesn’t feel the same as when she sits alone in her room and contemplates her books. Not all of them are municipally approved, but at this point Tamika figures she’s earned the right to some leeway. (She assumes City Council members are sort of like librarians, in that they’re shadowy and menacing but can be defeated if you’re clever and brave enough. She hopes she’s right.)

The stuffed librarian head glares at her from on top of her dresser, or seems to. She bares her teeth at it before plopping down in front of her bookshelf. She peels and sticks the little circles on the spines carefully, right between the title and author name. She hasn’t read all of them yet, but she’s confident she’ll understand why they’re tactically and thematically important in time. And maybe, at some point, she’ll even learn to enjoy them for their own sake.

//

Steve Carlsberg makes it a game for his daughter. He wakes her up every week, booming “Sunday is dot day!” and she shrieks knowingly, evading his attempts to dot her until he tackles her in a bear hug. It is their signal to start putting bits of red all over each other’s hands and arms. 

After lunch he helps her dot the picture of her mother. The frame is awash in color, tangible layers of accreted remembrance. After he puts his daughter to bed he goes downstairs. He recalls how Lydia first introduced him to the custom when he arrived, the definitely dubious, probably disdainful look on his face as she opened the packages. He was still in his perpetual bewilderment stage with his inability to understand the town (not that he does now really, but it was infinitely worse before), and she was so patient. Her death unmoored him, in ways he is still trying to make sense of even now. She smiles, frozen and eternally beautiful, and he puts one more red circle on the frame.

//

Dana puts dots on her phone, her connection to the outside world. (There was debate on whether or not she should get them, since she is in the dog park that nobody should think about. Finally the City Council decided since she is still technically a resident, it would be only proper. And so she’ll stop bothering them with emails and texts already.) She puts them on the pictures of her mother and brother, which came wrapped around boxes of granola bars and beef jerky the other interns and concerned citizens chuck over the wall. She also puts them on the metal tree she considers her own, the one that shelters her from the unforgiving sun and the ominous clouds. And because she knows she is strong, resourceful, and clever, and will get out of this place one day soon, she puts one on herself too.

//

Carlos is in a state of indecision about where to put his dots. He supposes this is a sign he’s acclimating, as opposed to questioning why he’s doing it in the first place. It’s not that he hasn’t done this before, but he’s been remarkably haphazard about it. Evidently his new resident grace period has expired, because this week’s delivery was accompanied by a knock at the door and a stern look (at least that’s what he thought it was, based upon what little expression he could see outside the balaclava). 

Perhaps this is something that should be approached methodically. He’s already dotted most of his essential equipment just in case. He loves science, and he needs it to do science, so by some teleological property that makes it true, presumably. (There are reasons he wasn’t a philosophy major.) The rest, he’s not so sure about. Does he sticker the cot in the back room, where he and Cecil make out during downtimes in experiments? Or the emergency shower they used after getting caught in an unexpected slime storm? His musings are interrupted by a knock at the door, and he opens it to find Cecil with a box from Rico’s. 

Carlos motions him in. Impulsively, he pulls the sheet from his pocket and sticks a dot on Cecil’s nose. Cecil goes very still before smiling and kissing him firmly, sweetly. When they break apart Cecil puts a sticker on the back of his hand, fingers lingering much longer than necessary. Carlos doesn’t mind a bit, and feels like he understands everything he needs to know for now.


End file.
